2011 Puerh Tea Cakes have arrived

Our 2011 Puerh tea cakes have arrived back in Falmouth and are now available in our shop and on our website.

It’s been an interesting year making puerh. The prices of old tree maocha were quite a bit higher than previous years in all places. In Lao Banzhang tea was even selling 1800-2000RMB/kg. As usual we tended to stay away from these most famous places, but made a small test production from Guafengzhai near Yiwu. I’m very pleased with these cakes & am hopeful that we’ve formed the basis of a relationship that can continue in future years.

We also changed villages for our Nannuo tea this year, finding someone who’d taken a 70 year lease on an old tea garden a few years ago. We bought a little of his tea last year and kept this for personal consumption. Last year was the first time he’d picked the trees in 5 years & the tea was excellent. This year, with a little more rain the leaves are even stronger and the flavour has more depth. He let us buy the fresh leaves and process them ourselves, which gave us more control over the production quality.

We also picked up and pressed some shu maocha we’d commissioned last year. This was made from a blend of 80% Mansai &10% Bulang (the same maocha used for our cakes last year), along with 10% Lao Man’e old tree leaves. We wanted to make a shu puerh that was lightly fermented, using only old tree material and knew a producer who makes small productions in baskets instead of the usual piling on the floor. He also uses well water to ferment the puerh, giving a very clean, pure taste. I’m very happy with the result. The fermentation finished a couple of months ago, so I’m going to give these cakes a couple of months or so before selling. This will allow the wodui flavours to settle and dissipate a little. At that time, we should be edging towards the Autumn and a little shu puerh will be warming and comforting for those colder nights.